sent to her without
understanding anything about it. Alkibiades, Basilea, the mistress of
the Archon, what signified that to her? What did it mean? Then suddenly
her thought rested on the name of Sulpice, travestied in the Greek of
parody, Sulpicios. Was it of her husband that they intended to speak?
She immediately felt a bitter anguish at heart, but it was a matter only
of allowing one's self to be impressed by a journalistic pleasantry, as
contemptible as an anonymous letter! She would think no more about it.
She must concentrate her thoughts on the evening's reception. There was
to be an official repast, followed by a soiree. She had nothing to
concern herself about in regard to the menu; Chevet undertook that. For
the ministerial dinners there was a fixed price as in restaurants. Hosts
and guests live _au cabaret_, they dine at so much a head. Adrienne
endeavored to occupy herself with the musical soiree, with the
programmes that they brought her, with the names of comedians and female
singers, printed on vellum, and with those bouquets with which the vases
of her little salon were decorated. Ah! well, yes, in spite of the
feverish activity, she could think only of that article in the journal,
that miserable article, every line of which flamed before her eyes just
as when one has looked too long at a fire. She had been seized with the
temptation there and then to openly ask Sulpice what these veiled
illusions meant.

"I hope, indeed," she thought, with her contempt of all lying, "that he
will not charge me with suspecting him. No, certainly, I do not suspect
him."

She went to the little cabinet where Sulpice sometimes read or worked
after breakfast, and there, as if she had thrown herself upon an open
knife, she suddenly heard those sinister words which pierced her very
flesh like pointed blades.

They were speaking of another woman. Lissac said in a loud tone: Your
mistress! and Vaudrey allowed it to be said!--

A mistress! what mistress? Marianne Kayser! Oh, that woman of whom
Sulpice had so often spoken in an indifferent manner, that pretty
creature, so often seen, seductive, wonderfully beautiful, terrifyingly
beautiful, it was she! Your mistress! Sulpice had a mistress! He lied,
he deceived. He? She was betrayed! Was it possible? If it were possible?
But it was true! Eh! _parbleu_, yes, it was true--And this, then, was
why they had sent her this horrible article! She knew now.

She had been tempted to e